


Caring is Creepy

by olivemartini



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Romance, Spencer deserves a happy ending so I'm going to give him one, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-25
Updated: 2016-06-25
Packaged: 2018-07-18 05:33:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7301470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivemartini/pseuds/olivemartini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You get choices in life.<br/>For Nora, joining the BAU team to become a kick ass technical analysis was one of them.  <br/>Getting occasionally stalked, shot at, or terrified out of her mind wasn't.  Waking up twice a week from some horrible nightmare wasn't.  Dealing with the worst kind of monsters and finally giving up on the idea that there is a bit of good in everyone, wasn't.<br/>These were the bad things.<br/>But there were also good things, even if the universe didn't exactly ask her permission before making them happen.  Like caring so much about the team that they're the family she never got to have, or loving the team's resident genius so fiercely she thinks it might break her heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Caring is Creepy

**Author's Note:**

> The cadence of suffering has begun.  
> -Cesar Pavese

Monsters are real.

They don't live under your bed, or in the closet.  They don't hide in the shadows or only come out at night.  Evil doesn't just exist in creepy men with white vans or terrorists from halfway across the world. 

They are at work with us, sitting beside us on a subway, lurking behind the smile of the girl behind the counter.  They are our neighbors, friends, lovers, family.   They are near us, with us, inside of us.

Nora has seen them all, some up close and some from behind the comfort of her computer screen, but it doesn't change the facts: monsters are real, and every time you get rid of one, another five seem to spring out of nowhere. 

* * *

Believe it or not, she got the job on accident.

At the time, she wasn't thinking of consequences or impressing everyone.  She wasn't wondering about the jail time that might come from using her slightly illegal (highly illegal) computer software in a government building, or if she might accidently take down a couple thousand dollars worth of security measures.  All she wanted to do was stay alive, and while the FBI agent speaking to her on the phone (as she was crouched underneath a desk, hyperventilating and watching a very angry man wave a very scary looking gun around in the air) was promising that they had things in control, that she just had to try and get out of there, and if that wasn't possible, then she should hide or maybe even try to calm the man down.

Which, right, easy for you to say, Mr. "please stay calm miss you're going to be alright," you didn't just watch a librarian get shot and collapse on the floor. And while she wanted to say she was the type of girl that could stare down the barrel of a gun because she's just that heroic, sobbing and crawling over to the room on her left didn't seem like too bad of an idea.  Except that once the terrified looking teenager inside closed the door and shoved a filing cabinet up against it (Abigail, she would later learn, was there for work and had been having a fantastic summer up until she got shot in her leg), there was no where for her to go and nothing to do but listen to some pyscho shout a bunch of threats to his imaginary friends.

So she started talking to the idiotic agent again, only this time he'd been replaced by Derek with the BAU, who was asking her where she was and what the man was doing, if there was anyone she could see, if he was making any strange movements, what he was saying, if anyone was hurt.  Then the phone got passed on to Dr. Reid (there was a muffled argument in the background before he took the phone, and a few minutes in she understood why- his comforting skills need some work) who talked her through putting a tourquinet on Abigail's leg.  And when someone named Gideon said they needed a way to see what was going on inside of there, Nora zeroed in on the dinosaur of a computer and didn't even think before saying that she could do that.

Which was how she found herself working with Penelope Garcia and rerouting all the security camera's feed into Quanitico.  The woman could code like crazy, and it was nice to work with an equal (they had met before, worked on something from a very long time ago, back when Garcia was a different person and Nora was just starting out, but neither of them had mentioned it), nice to have a voice in her ear to block out the crying that coming from the other side of the door.  And when the nice Agent Hotchner (one of the only times she used that word to describe Hotch) got on the phone asked her to give them a line of communication, Nora practically gave them an open door.

(Well, not a door, but the numbers for the fax machines, and the cameras to every computer, and some miraculous way of talking through the speakers.  This worked really well until the man -an UNSUB, they called him- went around and bashed in all the speakers with his gun.)

Nora didn't leave the room, even when the building filled with agents and forensic investigators and Abigail was taken away on a stretcher.  She didn't leave, not even when Gideon came to introduce himself and explain who exactly she had been talking to, not when Morgan gave her a pat on the back and a coffee, or when Spencer came and stood in the corner of the room without saying anything. It didn't occur to her that she should have left or at least wiped the hard drive, that they all had been taking turns making sure the hacker genius didn't run away.  At least, not until Elle took one look at the screen, gave a low whistle, and told her that she was in big trouble.  By the time Hotch came in and talked to her, she had drowned her nerves in coffee and had become resigned to the idea of life in a minimum security prison.

The job offer came a month later.  She accepted.


End file.
